Julie Iromuanya - Mr. and Mrs. Doctor

They sipped silently. After a moment, Emeka spoke. “She tells me it was juju.” He smirked. “That’s why she has not had a son for all these years.”

Job smirked along with him. He didn’t believe in such a thing, the thought that a witch could put a hex on Gladys to bring her misfortune, let alone deny her a son. It was the kind of story his grandparents and generations before them had repeated to him as a small child, the kind of story his parents respectfully nodded at, then quietly chuckled over.

“Her sisters.” Emeka rolled his eyes. “They are sending an emissary to the village for a native doctor. Can you believe this nonsense? I have had to pay three thousand dollars to take care of this matter.” He looked gravely at Job, and Job could see in Emeka’s eyes that he really did believe it. “I have an enemy. Someone is jealous of me, my friend.”

“Come now.”

“It is true. I am a man with the fortune of marrying a beautiful, intelligent wife. I have six beautiful daughters, two at university. I own a palace. I have the top position at the university. I tell you, a jealous man is watching.”

“You don’t believe such nonsense,” Job said.

“Of course not,” Emeka snapped at him and crossed his arms on the bar. “Of course not.”

They ordered a second round. And then a third. By the time they had lost count, the men and the sole woman had turned away from the bar and faced the stage at the back of the room. A string of scantily clad women with knobby knees and bruised thighs stood on the stage in various poses. At twenty, they were destined for a cruel middle age. Emeka glowered. He called them ugly harlots, cows. He said, “See that one, and that one. Ashawo!” He waved dismissively at their stretch marks, at the downward dip of their nipples. “They already have children. What kind of mother dances naked? Shameless. Ah-ah! A-mer-eeka.” But his eyes did not leave them.

Job nodded in assent, his eyes shamefully dodging those of the women on the stage. He told Emeka about the phone calls, about Cheryl—“She has called three times, oh, begging me for my money”—but he left out the fact that he had given it to her.

Without his eyes leaving the stage, Emeka wagged his head. After a moment, he reconsidered. “Wait, wait, wait. Is this the woman who gave you a blow job so many years ago? This one?”

Job nodded carefully.

Emeka laughed. “You mean to tell me that this woman has used your name to pay her bills? And you have done nothing?”

Job thought it over. “It is a business arrangement.”

“You are being taken for a long ride, my friend.” He shook his head at Job. “What does she want?”

“Money. All the time, begging me for money. You see, I am the most successful man she knows. Of all her American friends, I am the only one who is capable to provide the investment income,” Job said. “But I have refused to hear her nonsense.”

“Americans are way-o. I would not be the fool in this business,” Emeka said. He clucked softly.

“I would not know this thief if it had not been for you.” Job’s voice rose. “You said it would be easy. You said, ‘Marry quick-quick, divorce quick-quick, and citizen.’”

“Job, my friend,” Emeka said, “I have known you since you were still suckling your mother’s breast from here in America.” He sighed. “Have I not taught you anything? You do not know how to make your voice heard.”

“What are you talking about?” Job shrugged. “I have washed my hands of this woman until I see a profit margin increase.”

“Then she wants to blow job you again. Is this the profit margin that you will be increasing?” Emeka laughed throatily. “Why are you complaining to me?” Emeka drunkenly swatted at Job. “Eh, why are you wasting my time?”

“Heh.” Job fumed. Why must he turn to Emeka for help when the man couldn’t even control his own home? Clearly it was Emeka’s fault about the baby. What kind of man forced his wife to work in that condition anyway? Ifi did not have to work, though Gladys did. Job thought about Ifi’s letter, about the palace she had described to her aunty: Ionic columns, crown molding, curtains of lace, a big-screen television. What did they need such nonsense for? None of it made sense to him. Lies. She had seen him leave for work each night. She must have known that he was not a lazy man. He had provided her with all the comforts a man could: a home, a comfortable bed, a fur coat, necklaces, and a designer dress. She had not suffered like Gladys. He turned to Emeka. “Gladys was still working, eh?” His voice rose in that warning note, the same note Emeka had used when he said Americans were way-o.

“Fuck you,” Emeka said. His mouth was full of spit, and his words salted the air with saliva. Then, almost guiltily, he straightened up, regained his composure, and turned to the bartender. “Drinks for everyone.”

The bartender lined up several of the stout, cloudy glasses on the bar and filled them all with ice and whiskey. Everyone nodded his or her thanks. One fellow patted Emeka on the back and called him “buddy.” Again, he was the hero. And once again, Job hated him for it. Why must everyone honor Emeka? Couldn’t they see that he was nothing more than a crook? He did not even come from a good family like Job.

The lone woman at the bar blew Emeka a kiss. She made her way over to them. Pale pink lipstick stained a row of yellowed teeth. Wrinkles lined her powdered face. “Listen, buddy,” she said, “I just want you to know, I appreciate your fellowship. So what do you do?” she asked.

Job answered for them. “He is an engineer and I am a doctor.”

She pulled out a card from her pocket and handed it to Emeka. Her name was Sheryl. Job laughed. He couldn’t help it. She was a boutique owner. She told Emeka to come by anytime. “Anytime at all.”

Emeka placed the card in his pocket without looking at the lady or the card.

Job gazed at Emeka. His eyes had begun to glaze over as he watched the gyrating strippers. Beads of sweat ran down their faces. The lipstick smudged. Dark raccoon makeup encircled the eyes of one of the strippers, and it matched the bruises on her bowed legs.

Job reached into his pocket for Ifi’s letter. He hadn’t yet decided what to do with it. He glanced at the envelope, but instead of Ifi’s careful longhand, he saw a typeface with Cheryl’s name and address. He shrank back in horror. Could he have accidentally posted Ifi’s letter with the bills for the day? For the first time, he wondered how many of these letters had made it to Aunty. And who else had seen them. It was not even what was contained in the letters that bothered him. Everyone had done it, he supposed. To some degree, they had all told their little lies. Uncomfortably he thought of his stethoscope and briefcase, and his nightly trips to the parking lot. But why must Ifi tell the little lies? Her life was uncomplicated, and when the baby arrived, it would be complete. Never would she have to endure the insults that he faced nightly — working long nights with little sleep, being chastised like a child by coworkers who had come from nothing, wiping feces from patients’ anuses. Never would she face these humiliations. He would make sure she lived the unsullied life of a big man’s wife if it killed him.

Job started to take the letter out of his pocket to show it to Emeka, to complain or to find a way to make Ifi, like Gladys, a woman dignified and content with life. He wasn’t sure which. Maybe Emeka would have an answer for this, as he had an answer for everything, as Samuel had.

Before Samuel left for the war, there were long talks with Job at age seven, his chin resting in his palm as Samuel strutted back and forth in front of his bed, instructing him about his civic duty as an Igbo. Samuel was one of the first to go, a rascally nineteen-year-old with jagged teeth and too much confidence. While others were dodging conscription, he enlisted. He so heartily believed in the cause. All those secret meetings he went to; for their father, the idea of an Igbo secessionist state was merely hushed, angry whispers in living rooms. Even so, Job worried that his brother was mixing with troublesome people: tall men in khakis who patted his shoulder and allowed him sips from their beers during the one meeting he followed Samuel to.